A Stalinist show trial is underway in Minsk, our friend and colleague Andrei Sannikov is on trial, and it's like some kind of bad dream -- nobody seems to be paying attention, and it is almost hard to believe it is happening.
Sannikov, who ran for president lawfully in the December 19 elections and lawfully called for a gathering of people on the public square to protest the fraud in the state-rigged ballot, is on trial unjustly, charged with organizing public disorder. The real public disorder in Belarus is the shockingly bad management of dictator Aleksander Lukashenka, who has lurched Belarus into a deplorable Soviet-style reprise of harsh political and cultural controls and a miserable economy. I suppose it's telling that Lukashenka has flown off to Ashgabat today, possibly in search of a quick tractor order or some other infusion of capital into his sagging regime, as Russian bail-outs haven't proved sufficient.
There's a strange and persistent socialist meme to the effect that Belarus somehow provides "a minimum" to people that they'd risk losing in Russia or Ukraine, and that explains the popularity of this madman. No. Force explains their support, and intimidation, and terror.
It's just awful looking at the picture of Sannikov in a cage -- they put people in cages in court while they are on trial, as if they are wild and dangerous animals. He looks grey and grim -- as you'd expect someone to look after four months in prison, after a brutal beating in which his leg and head were injured when riot police put a shield on top of him, then jumped up and down on it.
It's sickening for me to write about what is happening to my friend. Years ago, when Andrei, who has fought for preserving Belarusian independence, was beaten up by the RNE (Russian National Unity), the Russian nationalists, and he sent us pictures, so we could try to get attention to this outrage, it didn't occur to me that it could get worse from the Belarusian state itself. It was bad enough. They ran the place like the Soviet Union -- but not like under Andropov.
That changed -- after the brief spring of the pre-election campaign when the candidates flourished and had many followers and public speeches -- with the brutal crackdown the night of December 19. The authorities have utterly trumped up the case of "violence" -- it makes me spit.
What's most awful about this is that we see numerous revolutions in convulsions through the Middle East, with people routinely picking up stones, sticks, wire, smoke bombs, etc. -- and using them. Cars burning. People hurling smoke bombs and pitching rocks. Bandaged heads. And no one complaining among the ecstatic Western liberals about violence, about destruction, about incitement. There's a terrible tolerance of these routine forms of demonstrators' violence stopping shy of guns, as if it is ok, somehow, "in self defense".
But all it took in Minsk to put out the mendacious claim of "the opposition advocating violence" (which even the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights fell for) were...a broken door and window. That's it. The claims of injured policemen appear to be evaporating at these show trials. The claims of finding the sticks and smoke bombs in the square don't seem to hold up. There were LOTS of videos of the events, professional and amateur, and there seems to be provocateurs breaking the windows of the building with the electoral commission, and meanwhile, the opposition leaders in fact calling for maintaining order and keeping peaceful.
Among the many outrages of the trial session which opened yesterday was the calling to the stand of a representative of McDonald's fast food restaurant in Minsk (!). I inevitably recalled Thomas Friedman's claim that no two countries that both had McDonald's could be at war with each other.
But as I long ago commented, taking a picture of an OMON riot policeman standing next to a Ronald McDonald at a restaurant in Minsk, a country with a McDonald's can be at war with itself...
Supposedly, McDonald's suffered losses during the demonstration December 19 -- although riot police broke it up and it was long over by dawn -- and one can't help thinking that if anything, the restaurant had more, not less business. Even if it were blocked for a few hours on a Sunday night, surely the damages can't be in the millions -- and there's just something wrong with this picture...
There's so much more, I couldn't begin to write about it. Dmitry Bondarenko, one of Sannikov's close colleagues and friends, with whom I also met many times, was already sentenced to two years of prison yesterday. He simply acknowledged that yes, he had come to the square -- but that's not a crime.
What's been awful about all this, waking up and thinking of Andrei in jail every day, is the feeling of helplessness. There are so many other things in the world -- the tsunami in Japan, the crackdowns in Syria, the birth certificate...it's hard to get anyone to focus on this old-fashioned Stalin kangaroo court, harming innocent and decent people.
I really had to get in a fury today when a European (I did him the kindness of calling this Romanian in France a European which he appreciated) was bleating about the death penalty for Mumia...the death penalty that isn't coming to pass because the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. Nobody needed the prodding of Heinrich Boll for this to happen; it's a system that works. I certainly won't endorse the death penalty; but a violent Black Panther creep like Mumia, convicted for killing a policeman and gaining fame as a radio journalist from his prison cell, is not someone I'm going to shed the slightest tear for. That's what fascinates these Europeans -- anything where they can get to kick America.
And meanwhile, right in their own back yard, right in the heart of Europe, as some often say, an intelligent and decent man who organized the main independent website and opposition movement in his country is facing five to fifteen years in prison FOR NOTHING.
How can they let this pass? How can any of us? I will be the first to say that I haven't done enough. The petitions, the letters, the American gestures -- these aren't going to matter anyway, even though we should keep doing them.
All that will matter is a European boycott of Belarusian oil (the US has already declared a boycott), and a standing up to Russia on this, full stop. Jozef the Austrian was warbling for weeks about how we would walk in a free Minsk in Easter. Somehow, the Easter bunny wasn't hopping on the ploshcha. We had quite the knockdown debate in his Facebook group about my call for a boycott (which the US has already supported -- but that's because it doesn't have much to lose). Jozef thinks this is "ineffective" just "like the Cuban embargo" (sigh -- these European leftists, hopeless, hopeless). Worse, he thinks its harmful -- and some of his friends argue this even more strenuously. It's uncanny how they can't seem to accept -- and haven't for years and years! -- that the Lukashenka regime itself is what is harmful, and must be stopped, and cannot be "dialogued" with anymore.
I'm actually not for keeping the Cuban embargo, and think that Cuba should be love-bombed by peaceniks like the Soviet Union was in the 1980s -- that helped support informal movements and set the stage for dismantling the tyranny. And that's what we need to do with Belarus.
But that 30-year-long economic sanction is a very different thing than a short-term boycott of Belarusian oil to get Lukashenka to release his hostages -- pronto. Russia would understand this; it understands little else.
I want to write more about the things Andrei is saying -- his noble statements, his courage in the face of the awfulness. He was always determined this way. Like a lot of East European dissidents, he always said he wanted to live in a normal country, he wanted his sons to grow up in a normal country...
I can see vividly the bookshelf in his home. He showed me copies of a magazine I used to help out, "Problems of Eastern Europe". He had other samizdat books -- the sort of books sent out by the International Literary Centre. All those years we all sent books -- and it seemd hopeless. But Sannikov and others like him read them. They *lived* the "problems of Eastern Europe". And now there isn't enough backing for them from the powers that be -- but worse, the intellectuals who should know better. With the exception of Tom Stoppard, the playwright, and some theater people around him such as Jude Law, there has been little attention to Belarus. It doesn't capture the imagination for Europeans the way Palestine does.
You would think there'd be more than some Czechs and Swedes and Norwegians caring. Sannikov served as deputy foreign minister in the Belarusian government in the 1990s, and was instrumental in having Belarus give up its nuclear weapons to Russia, which was the deal when the Soviet Union broke up -- for security reasons.
And the deal was this -- as Andrei reminded US officials like Strobe Talbot and Steve Sestanovich again and again when I accompanied him to meetings -- in exchange for giving up their nukes, these countries were supposed to have a guarantee of their independence. That sure has been hard to maintain, as Russia threatens gas cut-offs and continues to bully the region. Lukashenka in fact is seen as a kind of dysfunctional "better Kania than Vanya" sort of figure (remember that slogan?!) -- except they wound up with not even Jaruzelski -- but someone far worse, a kind of fascistic clown of youthful vigour who seems to have endless energy for evil. Four people have disappeared in Belarus, all prominent figures -- and of course our friend Oleg Bebenin was found dead under suspicious circumstances last September.
I must admit that with Oleg's death by hanging -- a hanging none of us believe he committed -- I had a mixed view of the Belarus electoral campaign -- I felt coming to power wasn't worth *that*. And yet, it's precisely because of *that* that Andrei and his friends did try to come to power -- and you know something?
That's ok. That's what you get to do in an election, if you believe your party and your social movement can do better, and you are registered and you are on the ballot.
Maybe I am naive as some Belarusians -- when I saw Andrei and his wife, journalist Irina Khalip, and their little boy Danya, go to the ballot urn as Andrei cast his ballot, they seemed so happy, they were smiling and joyful, I didn't think it was going to end so horribly, with Sannikov broken and hurt on the snowy pavement, wincing.
I'm galled to see Andrei on the front page of RFE/RL...*for this*. They never covered him while he was working in the NGO movement for years -- the nationalists entrenched at the radios loathe the Russian-speaking European-oriented people like Sannikov who want independence, but also integration with Europe and good working relations with Russia, which after all, is not going anywhere any time soon as their neighbour. It truly chafes me to see RFE/RL put up an interview...with Sannikov in a cage. I guess that's how they preferred him...
It's shameful how badly the election was covered by the nationalists -- or whatever it is they actually are (it's not quite the right term to apply to cynics abroad rooting for the failure of parties in their homeland).
Meanwhile, all through this campaign, despite the snarky bile of the RFE/RL writers, there was an outpouring of support and a huge surge of activism of the candidates in the provinces and in Minsk. It was really quite something to see -- if you watched the youtubes on charter97.org and didn't just read certain newspapers or emigre reports. It's amazing to me and totally inspiring to see thousands of people pouring out their support to Andrei, Dima and others in European Belarus, the name of Sannikov's movement. "Derzhis', prezident!" people write. "Hang in there, President!"
While we can go on writing letters and petitions and personal cards to Sannikov -- his mother, Alla Sannikova, has especially asked for this, there are three things that have to happen:
o Europe must be brought around to boycott Belarusian oil -- as the US has done. That's all there is to it. Nothing else matters. Visa sanctions, reduction in conferencing or dialogue -- no. Boycott.
o Raise Belarus with Russia. It's amazing what a tough request this can be in some quarters, particularly in Polonia, due to the fear of seeming to somehow concede Belarusian politics to Russia. The fact is, the Kremlin already meddles, and for worse. Here's the thing: Russia is not the liberator or the liberalizing factor here (as some naively thought some years ago when they thought the Union might liberalize backward Belarus). Yet Russia has levers of influence and may be able to negotiate the release of prisoners. They must be asked.
o Stop telling the opposition to unite, and to not boycott the parliamentary elections. Anyone counseling independent politicians in Belarus to go back under the knife in fake elections should have their head examined! Respect that they have really had enough of this -- some have spent months and years in jail -- and it really has to stop. The West isn't united about what to do about Russia -- or many other things (Libya, Afghanistan). A beleaguered civil society that is beaten for its peaceful expression should not be further savaged. Let the boycott roll -- it's the right thing to do. Silly electioneering tech assistance right now is truly obscene, after December 19.
The reality is that the old Belarusian polygon method is in play -- today we are seeing Andrei Sannikov on trial, and only saw Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev on trial in Moscow -- but tomorrow we will see Boris Nemtsov on trial -- and not for 15 days, next year in their elections. The time to put your foot down on Russian oppression is now, in Minsk, as it will all be replayed soon enough if we don't. This is definitely a "for your freedom and ours moment".
Yet the fight for Andrei's freedom deserves to be fought for its own sake. It simply shouldn't stand that a man with the title of ambassador at the Foreign Ministry, a man received by high officials around the world, who has spoken at the UN on human rights, who has many, many colleagues who are ambassadors from around the world, should be going to jail today. That means a lot of individuals have to do their best to find channels of quiet -- and public diplomacy.
And you know something? I'm not at all sorry to be as bitter and as blunt as I need to be on this day, calling out people or countries that I think are being morally cowardly. It's wrong, what's happening in Minsk. It shouldn't happen. That it *can* happen is a function not only of the "last dictator in Europe" but the free world as well, refusing to take a firm stand in the way it matters, not with press statements or fact-finding missions or Moscow mechanisms, but with a boycott -- of any future elections, until Lukashenka and his machine of repression is gone -- and of Belarusian oil, until his mind is concentrated wonderfully.
As Andrei's has been, sitting in prison for many long days, keeping up his spirits despite the pain.
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